With the Christmas season approaching, athletes with the Sharyland High School Boys Basketball Program ensured that a group of students in their district received some holiday cheer.

On Tuesday, Dec. 18, students with the SHS Boys Basketball Program met with all the 55 elementary migrant students in the district to present each of them with a new pair of basketball shoes.

Jose D. Moran, head boys basketball coach, spearheaded the idea after discussing it with a former player, Moran said Tuesday.

“Every year my boys go out to do something to help out the community during the season,” Moran said. “We’ve always helped different people, in the last few years we’ve done events at Doctors Hospital at Renaissance and helping feed people in Edinburg. So we thought why not help our own community?”

Moran decided to give the elementary students new basketball shoes and worked with several departments to make Tuesday’s event a reality.

“Events like these are what the holidays are for,” Moran said. “Not everyone is privileged to receive or own a pair of basketball shoes so I think it’s awesome how so many people and programs came together to help out.”

Moran got together with DHR, a sponsor of the boy’s athletic team who agreed to fund the donations necessary to buy the shoes from BSN, a website where the Sharyland district purchases their athletic gear.

The migrant students received a pair of Nike shoes valued at a total of $2,500, Moran said.

The 55 campus basketball players contributed by helping wrap the shoe boxes and presenting it to the migrant students at the Sharyland High School Gym in an event that included pizza for the migrant students, who also received a new pair of socks to go with their shoes.

“We always want to do something for our migrant students, so this felt like the perfect thing to do because it’s students doing it for other students,” Teresa Gonzalez, the district’s federal programs director said. “These kids look up to high school students, especially the athletes, so this is a great way to introduce them to each other while receiving a gift from them.”

Gonzalez, whose department also oversees the district’s migrant program, said the district has a total of 115 migrant students.

“Every family has a different way of celebrating Christmas, and it’s especially true for migrant students,” Gonzalez said. “They leave for the summer for work every year so Christmas here is a bit of a relaxing thing for them. It can get hard for them since most of our migrant students come from [underprivileged] families so the district helps them out any way we can. This is one of those ways.”